Felt Bead Earring Tutorial
Posted by Administrator on Mar 20, 2008
I wrote a guest tutorial for Jewelry and Beading on using felt beads to make an easy, cute pair of earrings. You can make the felt beads yourself if you know how to felt wool, or buy them if you want more of an instant gratification project. I sell the ones I make in my etsy store. Here’s a link to the felt bead earring tutorial.
Jewelry 101: Pickle
Posted by Administrator on Sep 6, 2007
Pickle is used to clean oxidation and flux residue off of metal. It is an acidic solution that you can buy from a jewelry supply store, or you can make a do-it-yourself version at home. Pickle can be stored in a glass jar or a ceramic crock pot. It works faster if it’s heated up, which is why a lot of people use a crock pot. It helps to keep pickle in a closed container so that the liquid doesn’t evaporate as quickly.
I use a product called Ph minus for pickle, which is an acid that lowers the Ph level in pools and hot tubs. I dissolve a little of this in water, and it works well for me. I don’t bother heating it, since it works fine cold, just takes a bit longer.
Other DIY versions of pickle that I’ve heard of include using Simple Green (the household cleaning product), lemon juice, and vinegar. I can’t vouch for how well these work since I’ve never tried them, but they are all inexpensive and safe, so they might be worth a try.
To use pickle, drop your oxidized metal in and wait for the oxidation to come off. Avoid touching the pickle in any way with steel (such as steel tweezers) because this will automatically copper plate everything you are trying to clean. Copper tongs are available for dropping items into pickle and then fishing them out later. Since pickle is an acid, even if you use one of the milder at-home versions, you might not want to get it on your skin, so copper tongs or even some wood chopsticks are useful to get your jewelry in and out of the pickle.
Crocheted Purse and a WIP
Posted by Administrator on Jun 29, 2007
I know it isn’t jewelry, but I made this cute crocheted purse while following along with the learn to crochet lessons at Crafty Daisies. There was a link to a purse pattern in lesson #4, which I altered slightly, mostly by making it bigger and winging it on the ruffle part since I didn’t write it down (but ruffles are easy enough to crochet without a pattern).
And since this is supposed to be a jewelry blog, here’s a picture of my latest in-progress resin piece, using the top of an altoid tin as a bezel:
Dreams and Jewelry
Posted by Administrator on Jun 12, 2007
Andrea of Dreams and Jewelry made these beautiful earrings with a verdigris patina:
She was selling her beautiful enamel jewelry along with patinated metal creations like these earrings at the Southbay Soiree. I didn’t get a good picture of her enamel work, unfortunately, but you can see some of it on her dreams and jewelry website. Andrea is a metalsmith, so most of her jewelry is completely handmade from sheet metal, with either a patina or enamel adding color to her pieces.
